The wheels of justice grind slowly, but once in motion, they have a momentum that few other forces in our society can match or resist. For the first time, an American jury has awarded a verdict of medical malpractice over gender-transition surgery performed on a minor who later regretted it. It is unlikely to be the last.
The suit, filed in state court in White Plains, N.Y., resulted in a $2 million verdict for Fox Varian. The 22-year-old Varian sued her plastic surgeon and psychologist and their medical practices over a 2019 double mastectomy performed on her when she was only 16 in pursuit of a medically unnecessary “gender transition.” The jury awarded her $400,000 in future medical expenses and $1.6 million in compensation for pain and suffering.
As often happens in these cases, Varian’s mother had resisted giving consent, but the psychologist and the plastic surgeon got her agreement by wielding the “scare tactic” of her daughter being at risk for suicide. They continued to press this threat at the trial. The jury implicitly accepted the plaintiff’s argument that the doctors rushed to push gender transition prematurely instead of fully exploring Varian’s other psychological conditions as an explanation for her distress before taking such a drastic step the patient might regret later. The result was permanent harm.
Legally speaking, this is an unremarkable application of medical malpractice law; what is surprising is how long the medical professions ignored the risk. This was a predictable and predicted outcome. It became inevitable that such things would happen once medical professionals decided en masse to follow fashion and ideology and disregard warnings that they were performing irreversible operations on people too young to consent. The doctors played God, and forgot that they are not. A jury of their mortal peers reminded them.
The government could have stopped these abuses. So could the medical professions. In their absence, here come the lawyers. Once having tasted victory, they will keep coming, and they will not be gentle. Lawsuits are cold comfort to the victims now struggling through detransitioning, but they deliver justice, and money talks. Independent journalist Benjamin Ryan, who attended the trial after the court sealed all the records, reports that 27 other such suits have been filed, a few of which were settled out of court for undisclosed awards. This was the first one to go to trial.
Jury verdicts are not legal precedents, but they can have equally immediate systemic effects. Undoubtedly, malpractice insurers will take notice and reflect the increased risk in premiums. Perhaps not coincidentally, four days after the verdict, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons issued a new position statement opposing “gender-affirming” surgeries in patients under the age of 19 — the first major American medical association to clearly disavow gender-transition surgeries for minors. We hope that other medical associations come similarly to their senses — and remember their oath to do no harm. If not, they will pay for it.